


Lost Memories

by pt_tucker



Series: Memories: Now and Then [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zack Lives, Getting Back Together, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, Post-Dirge of Cerberus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 23:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13134321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pt_tucker/pseuds/pt_tucker
Summary: An innocent question from Marlene drudges up truths that Cloud's forgotten.





	Lost Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrenchcoatRats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrenchcoatRats/gifts).



> As always, I generally age-up the Crisis Core characters to 18 (Cloud) and 19 (Zack) so when they mention a past relationship, they would have been of age in the real world and not just in the strange FFVII world where apparently 14-year-olds can join the ShinRa army. Also, there would have been a power differential between them due to their ranks at the time, but as this is a decade later, I'm not going to bother going into that.
> 
> Written for the FFVII Secret Santa exchange for AceSpaceDad, who wanted some post-Crisis Core Clack. Inspired by some discord chat I had with chaoscheebs about poor Cloud forgetting his previous relationship with Zack, the poor dear. :(

“Are you Cloud’s boyfriend?”

Cloud inhaled the beer he’d been sipping and proceeded to cough like a man dying. Which he might very well be, considering how hard Zack had to hit him on the back for his lungs to start working properly again.

“What makes you think that?” Zack asked, his eyes flitting towards Marlene briefly before coming back to rest on Cloud. Much like they’d been all night. Every night. Ever since they’d found him in that deserted lab. As if he was terrified that if he looked away for too long, Cloud would be gone when he looked back.

Cloud understood the feeling all too well.

Marlene rocked back and forth beside them. “The other night I saw you kiss-”

“Marlene, why don’t you come help me with these glasses, okay?” Tifa asked, swooping in just as Zack’s eyes had begun to go wide. 

Cloud’s heart stuttered. Kiss? What? Who? _Him?_

“Well, it sure is getting late, isn’t it?” Zack all but rocketed off the barstool. “I should probably head to bed. Gotta get up early tomorrow and do…stuff.” He started and then aborted what would have surely been an awkward gesture towards the stairs before simply darting over and up them. 

Cloud blinked. What the hell?

He glanced towards Tifa, who was doing her best to not catch his gaze.

His own barstool slid across the floor with a strangely loud scraping sound as he pushed himself away from the counter. Or maybe it wasn’t loud at all. He couldn’t tell. The adrenaline pounding through his veins seemed to be amplifying everything right then. 

“Zack?” Cloud asked when he reached the door to his office-slash-Zack’s bedroom.

“…Come in.”

Zack was pretending to read one of his old Geostigma texts when he pushed the door open. 

“Hey Cloud.” Now it was Zack’s turn to avoid his gaze.

“Hey.”

They remained in awkward silence for a beat before Zack jumped up from the desk they’d somehow managed to keep in the room, crammed beside the bed they’d added. 

“I guess Tifa didn’t really do the best job of covering that up, huh?” Zack rubbed at the back of his head as he stared at the floor. 

“Hard to keep secrets around kids,” Cloud murmured. It was true. He could still remember the shouting from when Barret had found out Cloud had accidentally left a piece of his sword within easy reach of small hands. He’d begged the kids not to tell him, and they’d certainly tried to do just that, but, well…let’s just say that’d been the last time he’d made that mistake.

Zack sighed before plopping down onto the mattress. “Tell me about it. Well, I guess there’s not much more to say. Marlene must have seen me the other day when I kissed you goodnight. Not like a creepy kiss.” His hands went into rapid motion as he quickly waved them in front of his face. “Just a peck, I swear.” He paused, as if waiting for Cloud’s reaction, before wincing when Cloud didn’t give him one. “Not much else to the story.” 

“Oh.” Cloud was unbearably aware of the heat spreading across his face as he looked away. He turned towards the door, before turning back just as quickly. “Is that something you used to do when we were…out there?” 

They shared a wry smile. It was always ‘out there.’ Never ‘on the run’ or ‘being hunted like the escaped lab rats ShinRa saw us as’ or ‘about to be brutally murdered by the very company we were once employed at after being tortured and experimented on for years and were lucky to survive.’ 

“Yeah, sometimes I’d do it while we were out there.” Another shared grin, this one a little less pained, but only a little. Healing, but not that much. 

“Just sometimes?” Cloud joked, even as he had to resist the urge to blurt out the question he really wanted to ask.

Zack threw his hands up defensively. “Hey now, I know I’m a great kisser, but I was busy! It’s not easy traveling the world when crazy redheads keep finding you.”

Cloud’s mind immediately jumped to Reno, before shifting back towards the fuzzy outline of an auburn-haired SOLDIER, and an even fuzzier female Turk. C-something, he was certain. Ciss-something? It was so close, right on the tip of his tongue-

He shook the memories away. They weren’t even his own. Not that he had any better luck trying to bring up his own past on the best of days. Some things would remain lost, it would seem. Which brought him back to the question he actually wanted answered. 

“Did you only kiss me goodnight while we were out there?”

Zack sighed again and this time fell back entirely onto the mattress and covered his eyes with his forearm. “I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.”

Cloud’s heart stutter was back. “Sorry.” He placed a hesitant hand on Zack’s stomach and watched as the other man quivered. It was a familiar scene, though not one he could actively recall ever being a part of.

That was his answer, then.

Groaning, Cloud fell back into his desk chair and dropped his face into his hands. Gaia, he’d been such an idiot! How could he have not seen the signs! Or worse, how could he have seen the signs and not put them together! They _were_ ‘boyfriends’ and he was a _moron_.

“Hey now, I know that sound. Don’t blame yourself, Spikey. I should have said something to you when you found me.” 

Except of course Zack wouldn’t have. Not ever. Not when it would have quickly become obvious to anyone with half a brain that Cloud had no damn idea who he even was half the time, let alone who his lover had been years earlier. 

“Cloud?” Fingers threaded through his hair. “You know it’s not your fault, right? That you’ve forgotten things?” 

Cloud didn’t bother with a response. They both knew that he knew that. Logically. It didn’t mean he still didn’t end up feeling like a complete failure when he eventually realized that he’d been living yet another lie. And that everyone around him had apparently been tip-toeing around the subject so as to not send him crashing down into a spiral of confusion and self-loathing.

Well, at least Tifa and Zack had been tip-toeing. Cloud seriously doubted Barret or, Gaia, _Cid_ had noticed anything amiss. Vincent, on the other hand…

“I mean,” Zack continued, drawing Cloud’s attention back towards him, “if you blame yourself for that, then I guess you’ll have to blame me for it too. I was the SOLDIER. I should have protected you.”

Cloud jerked back, Zack’s hand hovering in mid-air near his hair as Cloud stared at him with wide eyes. “Sephiroth decimated entire groups of SOLDIER Firsts during training sessions.” Cloud grimaced. Of course _that_ would be something he would remember. “You couldn’t have possibly won. The only reason I even had half a chance was because he got so engrossed in Jenova.” And because Cloud had likely been running on some kind of rage-filled adrenaline after the man had burned down his hometown and left his best friend, apparently boyfriend, to die right before his eyes.

Zack grinned and patted him on the head. “See, it’s no fun when people blame themselves for things they can’t control.”

Something in the lilt of his smile said there was more to Zack’s feelings about the Nibelheim incident, but Cloud didn’t push it. There’d be time for that later.

Cloud huffed and batted Zack’s hand away when he continued to pat him as if he were some kind of prized chocobo. 

Zack’s grin only grew and grew until finally Cloud was forced to roll his eyes and push him back, his own smile threatening to break free of his annoyance.

“Yes, fine. I see your point.”

“I knew you would.”

Cloud shook his head, amused.

“You know…” Zack trailed off as he gave him a contemplative look that couldn’t have been more staged if he’d been auditioning for a part in one of those ridiculous LOVELESS plays Marlene loved so much. “If you don’t have any memories of us before, that just means we get to make all new memories. If you want to.”

The heat spread across Cloud’s cheeks and down his neck as he nodded. His breath caught in his throat as Zack leaned forward.

New memories. 

Not the same as the ones he’d had, sure, but if that meant he got to feel the way Zack’s lips pressed against his for the first time all over again…

Well. 

That didn’t sound so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed it, especially my dear Secret Santa recipient!


End file.
